No surprise that this poorly written series didn’t last long. Howard Duff is Willie Dante, a gambler gone straight. He’s opening a club called Dante’s Inferno. Joanna Barnes is his girlfriend Amy. Alan Mowbray is Maitre’ D Stewart Styles and Tom D’Andrea is bartender Biff. It takes place in San Francisco.
Opening episode: October 3,1960 – “One For The Birds” – The club is due to open in a few days. Amy drops Dante off at the location and there’s a man in his office with a gun. It’s Stewart. He shows Willie a note demanding five hundred dollars. He says he needed the gun to confront the blackmailer. Stewart used to be a con man.
Willie says he’ll loan him the money as bait to catch the crook. That night in Stewart’s apartment a messenger delivers a package. Inside is a homing pigeon. A note says to attach the money and let the bird go. Willie and Amy drive to the delivery service as Willie wants to find out who sent the package. He steps out of the car and is sideswiped.
He doesn’t want to report the blackmail attempt so he convinces Amy to let him bash in the side of her car. He calls the cops and reports a hit and run. Amy got the license number and the cop allows them to listen in as the dispatcher gives the name and address of the person who belongs to the number.
Willie goes to Veronica Mizell’s apartment and confronts her. She admits running him down. She says she thought he was the blackmailer. Willie calls Stewart and has him come over. He and Veronica try and figure out what they have in common. Willie finally figures out they went to the same dentist.
Willie goes to the dentists’ office. Looks like he’s innocent. Then the light dawns. It’s really lame. The show ends in the club with some dumb dialogue between Willie, Stewart and Biff.
Tom D’Andrea is best known to TV fans as Gillis in “The Life Of Riley” (1953-58).
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